The Content Fragmentation Paradigm: Reshaping the Agent’s Role and Its Relationships with Publishers and Vendors

1. The Content Fragmentation Paradigm: Reshaping the Agent’s Role and Its Relationships with Publishers and Vendors Tina Feick, Swets Vice President, Customer Relations May 17, OVGTSL 2007 Annual Conference

2. Agenda • The changing electronic environment and its impact • How this is reshaping the agent’s role • How this new role is driving new relationships • Putting new roles and relationships into action, driving: • Standards • Interoperability • Efficiency • Transparency

3. The changing environment • Rapid expansion of e-content = greater complexity: • Changing the way content produce generate, package and supply information • New publisher pricing models and packages • Wide ranging licensing and rights management policies • Growing content fragmentation • New challenges for libraries to provide comprehensive electronic access and meet changing user expectations • Libraries lack the time and resources • Compounded by a lack of overall standards, consistency and transparency • Result: • Need for greater efficiency and transparency • Value now defined by: usage, impact factors, timeliness, and customer specific performance indicators

4. The Long Tail • Chris Anderson - Original article in Wired Magazine (October 2005) expanding into his book The Long Tail: • 80/20 rule: 80% of revenue is generated by 20% of products • But…in an electronic world where physical inventory is not a key factor, the 80/20 rule loses its meaning • When inventory is limitless or near limitless, the options for customers do not shrink but rather expand As a business model the Long Tail can be summed up… “…the biggest money is in the smallest sales” - Keith Laws, Venture Capitalist

5. The Long Tail and libraries • Information Discovery is the key to producing a LongTail—if consumers are able to discover the content, then there will be interest • Katherine Mossman (Library Journal, July, 2006) points out that in the Long Tail model, librarians and libraries play a key role • Libraries act as almost limitless inventory collections • Librarians act as search filters • Collection management by librarians is a constant work in progress “Filters are people or software that help you find what you want in the long tail, driving demand from hits to niches” - Chris Anderson

6. The Long Tail and scholarly content • Electronic content offerings almost limitless content types, publishers and consumers • Global information marketplace reach a global audience • Indexes, impact factors, publication types: • generate “Hits” or “Best Sellers” that drive the publishing world • but this model is changing Shift from content is king to customer is king; customers’ usage statistics will determine what they want to buy

7. What this means for agents Agent must now be an efficient, effective conduit connecting content users and content producers • Agent’ Unique Position: View of the whole e-resource supply chain Publishers: Information Producers AGENT Libraries: Information Consumers • Neutral party serving the needs of libraries and publishers • Supporting e-resources to facilitate greater efficiency and improved access • Possess essential information needed by libraries and publishers • Working with publishers/platform providers to gather info

8. Agent Service Suite: Subscription Management E-Service Components Connectivity & Interoperability Definitive Data Source Standardization Reshaping the agents role Expanded role in reducing complexity and driving efficiency • Neutral definitive data source • Exchange data with ERAMs, publishers, platform providers and other 3rd party agents • Assume expanded role in standardization on metadata • Ensure cross-industry Interoperability • Reduce data duplication • This requires standards • and partners!

9. Reshaping the agents role Meeting the challenge: what agents are tracking • Increased staff to track e-information including pricing: • Specialists in e-world • Plus more Publisher Relations staff • Added fields to record e-data elements: • URL • Activation instructions • License and/or terms and conditions • Publisher profile: • E-contact person/department • Platform provider – ingenta, Atypon, Metapress • Account profile: • E-contact person • IP address and domain address • Upgrade defaults • Tier levels • Increased costs: • Added and higher level staff • Training • Computer programming • E-product development

10. Reshaping the agents role Must also provide e-resource tools that maximize access to and usage of carefully acquired content • Online subscription management and procurement • Federated Search • E-journal gateway conduit to full text content • Customized A-Z listing of entire print and electronic holdings • OpenURL Linking, and more…

11. New agent role = new relationships • E-resources are here to stay—they are not going away • We must live through the complex stuff—jump in, learn, and absorb in order to transition to a simpler stage • We must simplify through the creation of standards • Standards lead to interoperability which leads to efficiencies All of this is driving new relationships between agents, publishers, vendors and industry associations to create: standards, interoperability, transparency and efficiency for greater digital access

12. Making it happen: SUSHI and LEWG • NISO (National Information Standards Organization): www.niso.org • SUSHI – Standardize Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative • - Innovative, ExLibris, Swets, EBSCO, Cornell University • - Request and send usage statistics – RAW DATA • - NOW Z39.93 • - LOAD INTO ERM SYSTEMS • License Expression Work Group (Based on DLF work) • - Defining elements of license to record in ERM • - Standard license • - LOAD INTO ERM SYSTEMS • Results = Increased Interoperability

13. SUSHI and new vendor partnerships in action • Wayne State University Libraries successfully implemented SUSHI protocol with Innovative Interfaces and Swets • Can now use Innovative's ERM system to automatically load COUNTER- compliant usage statistics from Swets’ e-journal gateway on a scheduled basis via web services • By combining usage statistics with payment data: • Innovative's ERM automatically calculates cost-per-use analysis • Saves immense time and effort and helps maximize subscription investment • Before implementing SUSHI: • Staff had to go to more than 50 publisher websites • download statistics from each publisher • then change them into an analyzable format

14. Making it happen: Serials ONIX & ICEDIS • Joint Working Party – EDItEUR/DLF/NISO/PLS • Serials ONIX:http://www.editeur.org/onixserials.html • XML standard for data exchange between agents, publishers and Electronic Resource Management (ERM) systems. Includes: • Serials Holdings Information (A-Z information) • Serials Release Notification (new issues) • Serials Products and Subscriptions • Licensing Criteria – ONIX Publisher License Format Subscription details, title lists and pricing • Populate ERM fields • ICEDIS (International Committee for the EDI of Serials):http://www.icedis.org • Publishers and subscription agents • Standard for sending orders from agents to publishers • Now includes e-profile of customer • IP ranges • E-contact

15. Journal Supply Chain Efficiency Improvement Pilot Project (JSCEI): Registration/Activation Efficiency:www.JournalSupplyChain.org British Library, Highwire Press, Swets, Ringgold Explore common institutional identifier throughout chain Released mid-year report Extending pilot project through 2007 Approaching NISO to form standards committee Links and hierarchies OCLC Worldcat Registry – healthy competition?? UKSG (United Kingdom Serials Group) Transfer Working Group:www.projecttransfer.org Establish Code of Practice for the movement of publications from one publisher to another (-package to package) Library Issues: URL links; perpetual access rights; Journal prices Publisher Issues: Differing ownership of backfiles; need to maintain links Compliancy – similar to Counter – with audits Making it happen: Institutional Registry & Title Transfer

16. Making it happen: SERU • Shared EResources Understanding (SERU) • A major step—please pay attention • Sponsors: ARL, ALPSP, SSP and SPARC • http:/www.niso.org/committees/seru • Simplified form of licensing for libraries and publishers • Agreed terms and conditions • Focus groups held at ALA MidWinter • Draft document available • How it works—simplify! • Forego license and rely on shared understanding • Purchase order is acquisitions vehicle • Orders placed through vendors such as subscription agents and consortia • SERU posted on NISO website • NISO registry for librarians and publishers

17. Usage Statistics – PROJECT COUNTER • Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources • - Consistent way of counting usage • http://www.projectcounter.org • - Codes of Practice - Code for Journals and Databases – Release 2 – April 2005 - Code for Books and Reference Works – Release 1 – March 2006 • - Specifies content, format and delivery specifications of usage reports • - Reports must be supplied free of charge • - Reports must meet auditing standards • - Various journal reports – Full-text, Turnaways, Database Searches

18. Making it happen: vendor partnerships Agent Partnership with ScholarlyStats: • Web-based portal, providing a single point of access to an organization’s usage statistics from multiple content providers • Aggregates usage data into overviews and reports on a monthly basis • Allows organizations to easily analyze usage statistics per journal, per publisher, per database, and per platform in COUNTER compliant formats Library

19. Making it happen: agent & publisher partnerships • ALPSP Learned Journals Collection (ALJC) • Unique partnership between the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) and Agent (Swets) • 627 e-journals from 48 highly respected smaller and medium-sized publishers • Choose the entire collection or select from nine subject specific packages • How Libraries Benefit: • Enables direct, affordable acquisition of high quality content from a wide range of publishers • Provides the simplicity a single order, license and pricing model, eliminating the hassle of dealing with complex e-pricing models and multiple publishers • Gain instant access

20. COUNTER + SUSHI + ScholarlyStats + ERM

21. Conclusions • Rapid expansion of e-content = • Growing content fragmentation and complexity • The Long Tail – libraries play key role; impacts content producers • Agent must be efficient effective conduit connecting content users and producers • New e-environment is reshaping the agents role: • Uniquely positioned—neutral party serving needs of libraries and publishers • Expanded role in reducing complexity and driving efficiency • Means exchanging data with ERAMS, publishers, platform providers and vendors - standards and partners needed • Must provide e-resource tools to maximize access to and usage of valuable content • New role = new relationships: • Must simplify through creation of standards, leading to greater interoperability and efficiency • Driving new relationships between agents, publishers, vendors and associations to create: standards, transparency and efficiency

22. All Done! Thank you!May your e-experiences be bright! • Tina Feick • Vice President, Customer Relations • Swets Information Services • 160 Ninth Avenue • Runnemede, New Jersey 08078 • Phone: 1-800-645-6595, ext. 2238 • Fax: 1-856-632-7238 • Email: tfeick@us.swets.com • www.swets.com